This simple slave girl’s flowered skirt was hand-sewn with a whipstitch using natural thread.

Tracing the history of the linen and cotton blended skirt, and of Lucy, the little girl from Virginia who wore it, was a challenge for dozens of people.

“A lot of time when you’re doing historical research on enslaved men and women, it’s really hard to find information. So the fact that…there is something of a paper trail of her was exhilarating,” said Museum cataloguer Kamilah Stinnett.

The Washington Post explains how the skirt’s owner was authenticated and how the pretty skirt, covered with red, purple, blue and tan flowers, made its way from the Black Fashion Museum, now part of the Smithsonian, to the African American museum, which has nearly 37,000 artifacts.